


Don’t Leave Me

by Bittersweet_in_Boston



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Plums, Dorks in Love, Evil Alien Robots, Hospitals, Love, M/M, Seriously they love each other you guys, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, barfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittersweet_in_Boston/pseuds/Bittersweet_in_Boston
Summary: It’s midnight.Bucky moans as he kneels over the toilet bowl and yukes his guts out. He woke up half an hour ago with extreme abdominal pains and just made it to the bathroom in time. He takes a deep breath after the latest round and sits back on his knees. His eyes are red and swollen, and his face is pale.Steve looks at him sympathetically and reaches over to rub his back.“How ya doin, Buck,” he says in a solemn, consoling voice. Bucky shakes his head.“Not so good,” he rasps out. They sit in silence for a minute or two, Bucky trying to take deep breaths and Steve trying to be supportive and yet not too annoying or too invasive of Bucky’s personal space. The world has shrunk to the two of them, alone in this bathroom.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	Don’t Leave Me

**Author's Note:**

> CW: depicts barfing and some description of severe injuries. 
> 
> Thanks to Hat for the prompt, inspired by my memories of what I was doing on December 16, 1991. (Spoiler alert: no assassinations, just over-imbibing!) It started as a sort-of humorous idea that got serious and angsty, as so many of my ideas are wont to do. 
> 
> I wish I had no experience in hospital rooms, in either Steve’s or Bucky’s place, but alas. 
> 
> This could be standalone or it could be part of the Four Seasons series.
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone! xoxo

It’s midnight.

Bucky moans as he kneels over the toilet bowl and yukes his guts out. He woke up half an hour ago with extreme abdominal pains and just made it to the bathroom in time. He takes a deep breath after the latest round and sits back on his knees. His eyes are red and swollen, and his face is pale.

Steve looks at him sympathetically and reaches over to rub his back.

“How ya doin, Buck,” he says in a solemn, consoling voice. Bucky shakes his head.

“Not so good,” he rasps out. They sit in silence for a minute or two, Bucky trying to take deep breaths and Steve trying to be supportive and yet not too annoying or too invasive of Bucky’s personal space. The world has shrunk to the two of them, alone in this bathroom.

After a few more minutes, Bucky turns green and leans over the john again. His hair falls in his face, and Steve reaches over and gently holds it back as his partner retches violently into the toilet.

As Bucky brings his head up from this latest spasm, tears are running down his cheeks.

“Don’t leave me, Stevie,” he wails, as snot and tears commingle to make a truly grotesque picture. Bucky is one of the most gorgeous humans on the planet, and yet even he can’t make barfing look attractive. Steve touches Bucky’s shoulder as he continues to push his hair back from his face.

“I’m not goin anywhere, Buck,” he says quietly, looking with love at his boyfriend. Bucky may be an ugly mess of human secretions, but even now he is, to Steve, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Bucky looks at Steve’s face, with its classic beauty and its sideburns and its fucken EYELASHES, and bursts into fresh tears.

“Thank youuuuuu,” he sobs, sniffling hard and grabbing the commode rim. He tries valiantly to pull it together but it just doesn’t happen and a few minutes later he’s puking again. Steve stays with him, holding his hair back, saying nothing.

After an hour or so Bucky is all puked out and sits on the bathroom floor, covered in bodily fluids, utterly exhausted. Steve cradles him in his arms for a few minutes, then lifts him up to stand and gently wipes off his face with a warm washcloth. He pours Bucky some mouthwash to get the acrid taste of vomit out of his mouth. He walks Bucky out to the bedroom, carefully strips him out of his stained clothes, gets him into fresh pajamas, helps him into bed, and snuggles up behind him, stroking his hair.

As they start to drift off toward sleep, Steve kisses the back of Bucky’s neck and says, “Hey, Buck?”

“Yeah, Stevie,” answers Bucky, somewhat indistinctly.

“So, uhhhh...maybe next time we get a buncha plums, you eat two or three instead of thirty,” says Steve in a tone calibrated to appear devoid of judgment.

Bucky snorts. “Ya think?!?” he says in a voice threaded with bitterness. Then he takes a deep sigh and pushes back closer to Steve.

“Noted, punk,” he whispers. “Love ya.”

“I love you too, ya big fucken jerk,” murmurs Steve, hugging Bucky to him like he never intends to let go. He’s rewarded with the sound of Bucky’s steady breathing that indicates he’s unconscious. The sides of Steve’s mouth crook up and he feels his heart swell bigger in his chest. Then he, too, slides into sleep.

*****

It’s midnight.

Steve lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as he sits by the hospital bed. He leans over with his elbows on his legs and looks at the floor. His eyes are red and swollen, and his face is pale.

He’s gotten four hours of sleep in the last two days, but even now he refuses Nat’s offer to take his place while he gets some rest. She looks at him sympathetically and reaches over to rub his back, then slips out of the room without a sound.

“How ya doin, Buck,” he whispers to the ground, though he knows his partner can’t hear him. He looks up for the thousandth time at the face of the person he loves best in the world, a face that sports a rapidly healing black eye, a small bandage on the jaw, and a slim cannula pumping oxygen into its nostrils.

Steve purposely doesn’t look down from the face to the hospital johnny, its thinness giving a glimpse at the more serious bandages on the chest and torso. He sees the blanket pulled up on Bucky’s left side out of the corner of his eye, and knows it covers a twisted, melted stump of a vibranium arm, but steadfastly refuses to look in that direction.

Steve knows that Nat, Sam, and Clint are waiting outside and that Thor is stomping around the common room, cursing and stress eating. He knows Tony and Bruce are upstairs in the lab, burning off anxiety by repairing and upgrading Tony’s suit and drawing up plans for Bucky’s new arm. He knows that Shuri is even now flying her way across the Atlantic to help.

But none of that matters right now because everything that matters is here. The world has shrunk to the two of them, alone in this hospital room.

Bucky’s hair has gotten in his face, and Steve reaches over and gently pushes it back. Bucky’s chest is rising and falling by itself now that he’s been taken off the ventilator, and the beeps from the monitors are steady, if slow. But the surgeon’s face was serious coming out of the OR, and Steve knows the serum is not a guarantee.

The memories return in flashes as Steve leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. Steve and most of the other Avengers, surrounded and outflanked at LaGuardia by killer alien robots that were not only armed with laser cannon and long swords but could phase in and out around them. Tony and Bucky on the outside, Tony firing careful blasts at the disappearing robots and Bucky frowning, calculating, looking for the master robot and where it would phase next. Bucky counting, making a huge leap into thin air and landing on the largest robot as it phased in. Tony taking out its legs, Bucky landing a killer bionic punch into its circuitry. A flash of fire and a last flailing sword, and the leader robot and all its minions collapsing onto the tarmac. Bucky landing on his back, his vibranium arm smoldering and smoking, and blood. So much blood...

Steve leans forward again and chokes back a sob. He carefully picks up Bucky’s flesh hand from the hospital bed and holds it in both of his; the shallow gash on Bucky’s right elbow is already healing into a thin scar.

“Don’t leave me, Buck,” he whispers at the floor.

A few seconds later Steve’s hand gets a faint squeeze. He looks up, startled. Bucky is looking at him through heavily lidded eyes that are shining with love despite also being clouded with high-octane pain meds.

“I’m not goin anywhere, Stevie,” Bucky says in a small voice and grins weakly.

Steve bursts into tears.

“Thank youuuuu,” he sobs, sniffling hard and leaning down to kiss Bucky’s hand. And then all the worry and anguish of the last 48 hours collapse on him like a landslide and he cries until he feels sick, howling and wailing. Nat and Sam hurry into the room in a panic when they hear him, but then they see Bucky smiling at them from the bed and leave in a rush, hearts full and eyes overflowing, to tell the others.

Steve finally cries himself out and looks up at Bucky. Snot and tears commingle to make a truly grotesque picture. Steve is one of the most gorgeous humans on the planet, but even he can’t make ugly crying look attractive. And yet even now he is, to Bucky, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Love ya, punk,” whispers Bucky, just audible over the beeps.

“I love you too, ya big fucken jerk,” says Steve, letting go of Bucky’s hand to wipe his nose and eyes on his sleeve. Then he leans forward, rests his arms on the mattress, and puts his head down. Within a minute he’s unconscious. Bucky rests his hand on Steve’s head and caresses his hair. He feels his heart swell bigger in his chest. And he closes his eyes and follows Steve into sleep.


End file.
